Category Archives: Blog

In Education, Everything Is Politics

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What should one do when “the Great Hub Bub” seems so overwhelming and no one appears capable or willing to listen to those who yell “Stop! What are we doing! This makes no sense!”? The conundrum of public education in our times is summarized in two of my favorite quotations: “Everything is politics” (Thomas Mann) and “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much” (Yogi Berra).

The “Great Hub Bub” occurs in this convergence of educational and political overtalk when the drowning conversation, the real talk, is all about political advantage. Do we really think that a public figure would embrace parental choice if large financial donations and a voting block of outspoken public advocates, aka voters, were not associated with parental choice? Look to the list of governors and legislators funded by Americans For Prosperity. The PAC power of AFP pre-determined the status of parental choice in Wisconsin; there really was not debate. Or, would an elected official oppose the research of solid field studies and glom onto catch phrases if there was not an advantage? How many elected officials denounce any attempt to reform the K-12 science standards because their political position is that humans are not responsible for global warming? These are examples of special interest in action. Everything is politics.

In this environment, try to have a real conversation at the state or federal level about K-12 education, but check your wrist watch to see how many seconds it takes for the other person to cite a partisan or PAC talking point. It won’t take sixty seconds.

Today’s mail brought an informational piece from our state legislator. He resigned his position as the Board President of a local school district to run for state office. His school district, along with all Wisconsin districts, experienced significant reductions in state financial support as part of a Republican Governor and Republican-controlled legislative efforts to balance the state budget by cutting educational funding at all levels. His Board publicly pointed to the loss of state funding as the need for several successive funding referenda for their district. Even with successful referenda that Board laid off teachers and cut programs. Our legislator, the former Board President, now tells us in his mailing that the Republican policies are good for Wisconsin and are causing good things for K-12 schools. It’s impossible to get into a conversation with a partisan politician about K-12 education, they are talking the party line too much.

And, the Hub Bub goes on and on.

The Big Picture Is Needed For A Better Future

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Who sees the Big Picture for your school? The Big picture. You remember what that is. Generally, the Big Picture is the school’s Mission Statement. It is the collage of high ground learning outcomes that your school wants all children to achieve in “the best of educational worlds.” Some schools see themselves in terms of their Big Picture and their potential for making their Big Picture a statement of what they are. Big pictures are the work of visionaries, the large achievements to be attained over time. Big pictures are the dreams of teachers and parents related to the qualities that future children might become.

Just as there are Big Pictures there also are little pictures. The little picture, and there are many of them, are not associated with the best of educational worlds but with the reality of educational worlds. A little picture is this year’s graduation rate, or the comparison of this year’s fifth grade reading scores with that cohort’s reading scores last year, or the number of days that children categorized as minority were suspended from school this year compared with the number of suspension days for children categorized as white, English-speaking and not impoverished. Little pictures require school functionaries who are tasked with the management of specific annual outcomes. Little pictures are the annual measures of what happens on a daily and ultimately annual basis in a school.

It is difficult in 2015 to be a keeper of the Big Picture. Visionaries see schools differently than functionaries. This is a statement of truth not of prejudice. In order for schools to succeed in the world of 2015, they need the diligent work of functionaries, leaders who are focused on the little pictures of school accountability. A school that fails to meet its accountability mandates is a school with a limited future and a school without a future fails its community.

But, what if a school neglects its Big Picture? What if school leadership emphasizes the measured scores of little pictures by abandoning its efforts to provide an array of arts and humanities programs? What if the wellness curricula of physical education and health are short-changed? What if college-preparation extension courses of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate are eliminated? What if the only instructed language is English and the only career preparation is high school graduation? The answer to these “what ifs” is that the soul of the school will be lost. While the bones of instruction that support tested curricula will remain, the richness of programming authorized by the Mission Statement that ensures that the school can meet the ambitions of every child will not live in this school.

Achieving the little pictures at the expense of the Big Picture gives in to the pressures of education politics and abandons dreams of a greater future.

Close Achievement Gaps Before They Gape

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What does it take to cause all children to achieve grade level reading proficiency? “Whatever it takes” is the correct and only answer. The problem is that public education has not done a satisfactory job of causing all children to achieve grade level reading proficiency. The 2013-14 Wisconsin Information System for Education indicates that 63% of all students tested did NOT achieve grade level proficiency in reading.

Alarmingly, 64.8% of the elementary children tested were NOT proficient in reading. If the 2013-14 high school data are any indicator that children improve their reading over time, the answer is they do NOT. 57.2% of the high school students tested were NOT proficient in reading.

We need a new understanding of what “whatever it takes” means.

http://wisedash.dpi.wi.gov/Dashboard/Page/Home/Topic%20Area/Academic%20Performance/WSAS%20%28WKCE%20and%20WAA-SwD%29

From the get go, we need to remember always that indicators of reading proficiency are moving targets, annually involving a more complex and rigorous application of reading comprehension skills. If reading assessment was a foot race, children in Kindergarten would be expected to run ten yards in a specified amount of time. The distance becomes fifteen yards in first grade and twenty yards in second grade. A child who struggles in this race in Kindergarten, with extra training in first grade, may run ten yards in the Kindergarten-specific amount of time at the end of first grade, but the new marker for first grade is fifteen yards. This student is well on the pathway of being below grade level.

The real alarm sounds at the end of third grade, because children who cannot succeed in the third grade footrace (achieve third grade reading proficiency before entering fourth grade), typically are not able to comprehend 50% or more of the print material they are presented in fourth grade. And, the percentage of incomprehensible information increases every year until they graduate from of high school, or don’t graduate.

http://www.aecf.org/resources/early-warning-confirmed/

A new understanding of “whatever it takes” to cause all children to attain and sustain grade level reading proficiency simply stated is “all children will begin their first year of schooling ‘school ready’.” That means every child will have a strong working vocabulary and level of background information as a foundation for grade level reading instruction. This is “new” because school readiness today is an amorphous term that is more associated with “feeling good about school” than “readiness to do good in school.”

These steps will create and reinforce a new understanding of “whatever it takes to achieve a readiness for reading proficiency.”

1. Make Four-year old Kindergarten the first year of school for all children.

 319 of the 435 school districts in Wisconsin of have 4K programs – 116 districts do not. In the last century, 5K was the traditional first year of school for most children and 4K programs were few and far between and always optional. Today, 4K should be the first year of school for all children.

Opponents of 4K hold many reasons for delaying the start of school until a child is five-years old. Taken individually, their reasons can be valid. Taken as a generalization, they are not.

Reforms in K-12 education have fundamentally shifted academic expectations downward. What children were expected to master by the time they enrolled in middle school now is the curriculum of the upper elementary grades. The content and skills of fourth and fifth grade have become the content and skills of second and third grade. Kindergarten now teaches children what their parents learned in first and second grade. 4K is now Kindergarten.

Addressed from the educational accountability perspective, the academic assessment of children and conclusions regarding their academic achievement begin in third grade. These conclusions have deep repercussions for individual children and for their schools and teachers. Strong achievement yields acknowledgement of success while weak or failing achievement yields state-imposed penalties. It only makes sense for children to have the advantage of all the assessment readiness strategies available so that they can be successful in their academic achievement.

The incremental development of pre-reading readiness that can be achieved by a 4K and 5K combination gives more children a chance to obtain a third grade reading proficiency by the time they enroll in fourth grade.

http://ec.dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/fscp/pdf/ec4yk-09pp.pdf

2. Align pre-school and the school “farm systems” with school readiness.

Even though most pre-school operations are independent of their local school district, they still profess to be “pre”-school. Reinforce their independent governance and financial status, but insist that they align their curriculum with the district’s expectations for school readiness. Provide written explanations of what readiness for pre-reading means in terms of phonology, everyday word recognition, and experiential information. Be explicit or incoming pre-school graduates will continue to be unready for pre-reading.

As independent operators, pre-schools want their programming to be attractive to tuition-paying parents. Attractiveness too often looks like “fun time” activities and too seldom like pre-reading activities.

And, don’t be afraid to publicly appreciate the school readiness traditions of certain pre-schools or declare the inadequacies of others. The alignment of pre-school with school is in the child’s best interest to ensure that all children begin school ready for reading instruction.

3. Connect with Birth to Three, Head Start and local ethnic support centers.

The direct connection of cognitive delays, poverty and non-English speaking home language to below grade level achievement in primary school is clear in the Casey Foundations study. So, get at these three problems early. Don’t wait for these conditions to delay the pre-reading readiness of children, but provide each local organization with materials and activities they can distribute to their clients. Go further and volunteer school personnel who will meet with parents at these centers to demonstrate and reinforce how moms and dads can help their children develop young vocabularies.

The separation of birth-to-school programming from school is both traditional and wrong. Everyone involved with birth-to-school has a vested interest in every child’s school success.

4. Create a pre-school activity center.

Your school is a community center for parents of pre-school children as well as parents of children enrolled in school. Many of the 4K and 5K materials will be of interest to parents as they seek engaging activities for their pre-school aged children. Lend them or give them the materials they want and need – either way 4K and 5K teachers will reap the benefits of children who are ready to learn to read.

Invest in information rich materials for two-, three-, and four-year olds and make these available to parents of very young children. These are not usually available in your local library, so most parents need to purchase these for home use if they want them for their children. This expense is easy for a parent to forego because their child may spend little time before mastering these activities and moving on to what comes next. The cost looks greater than the benefit. So, create a lending library of materials and activities of birth-to- school children.

5. Act on Child Find and Kindergarten screening information

Whose is responsible for acting on the information that is learned from Child Find and Kindergarten screenings? Birth-to-Three programs have a responsibility to do follow-up for children with “found needs” in their age group. For children between age three and school enrollment the responsibility for follow-up rests with the parents and the school. If the Child Find information indicates a need for special education an IEP is developed and the school is responsible for its implementation. Many children, however, are identified with slight delays in cognitive or motor development that do not warrant special education. Too often the follow-up for children whose information says “I need help” but does not qualify for special education gets small attention. The traditional view has been that there is no funding for other pre-school children. Actually, there also is no help for those children.

Instead, create an inventory of information for each child who has been through the Child Find and Kindergarten screening processes. List strengths, weaknesses and recommendations. Then assign school personnel to facilitate the follow-up with parents for children who have identified weaknesses. Get at these small weaknesses before they become major weaknesses.

The greatest gaps among children in school performance appears on the first day of their school enrollment. Doing whatever it takes to close all achievement gapping means doing more than ever before to cause children to begin their first of school “school ready” for reading instruction.

The Key To “What If” Is “Whatever It Takes”

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What if? We all ponder our “what ifs”, those long shot wishes that it would be great to realize, yet we know that long shots are more wish than possibility. Half of pondering is considering “what it would take” to make our long shot happen. And, as with most ponders, the magnitude of what it would take dissolves the dream.

Still, we ponder, so ponder this. What if each and every child entering fourth grade could read and comprehend printed information written at or above the fourth grade level? What if teachers for fourth grade students could begin instruction in September with curricular materials that were at or more complex than fourth grade? As fourth grade marks a shift from learning to read to reading to learn, what if all children entered fourth grade capable of reading to learn? What if?

But, once again, there is a huge span between reality and the above “what if.” The reading comprehension level of children entering fourth grade typically ranges from late first grade to sixth grade. Children with special education needs, children living in poverty, and children who entered Kindergarten unready for schooling too0 often enter fourth grade with reading comprehension and other academic skills well below grade level. Most of their fourth grade instruction will be designed to get their skills past the second and maybe the third grade level and, even though they are exposed to the fourth grade instruction their at-grade-level peers receive, they are very likely leave fourth grade with academic achievement that will make their unready for fifth grade. For almost half the children in every elementary grade level, this describes their academic experience in grades K-5. And, after direct reading instruction ends with their passage to middle school, these children will struggle to read almost all printed material presented to them in grades 6 through 12.

So, again, consider the “what if” that describes all children as being proficient third grade readers ready and able to comprehend fourth grade printed materials. If the reading proficiencies of all children are at grade level, how much academic growth will these children be able to achieve in fourth grade? A lot! With regular fourth grade instruction and learning support, most children would be able to attain fifth grade with at grade level achievements.

This is sounding good. But, what would it take for this to happen, for all children to be at grade level as they complete their elementary education? A lot?

Stop your pondering here. Stop thinking about what all children at grade level would mean both for students and for teachers. Instead, be real and think about what it means today for learning achievement to be scattered across multiple grade levels when they begin fourth grade. Think about what it means to children who know they are still being taught second and third grade curricula. Think about what it means to children who are at or above grade level who know that their teacher must split instruction many times before she can address their grade level or advanced learning needs. Think about what the spread of achievement means for teachers as they plan for multiple grade levels of learning in their class.

When you add up all of these “think abouts,” you should come to a simple and ompelling conclusion. Whatever it takes to cause the reading proficiency of all children to be at beyond the fourth grade entry level is worth its expense.

All children reading at grade level certainly is more than worth all of the resources – time, money, modified instruction, assisted learning – we now plow into helping children in middle school through high school whose reading and comprehension abilities are significantly below grade level. This is not to say that all that we now do to cause children who are below grade level to learn is not worthwhile– far from it. No one advocates abandoning their learning. But, what if they were not below grade level?

Causing all children to achieve grade level reading comprehension when enter fourth grade is worth whatever it takes. Once we determine the scope and depth of the necessary whatevers, the next question we face is “What are we prepared to do?” Too often we know what to do but lack the conviction to do it because the whatevers seem overwhelmingly economically, politically and pedagogically difficult. The subsequent blogs will discuss “whatever it takes.”

Stop Being Too Little and Too Late

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“Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted,” was a favorite idiom of years gone by to tell someone that they are making a large to do after the fact. Some might have added “Too little, too late!” Each of these accurately expresses the status of the “Closing the Achievement Gap” mandates that are driving our contemporary educational reform initiatives. We need to close the barn door of learning disparities while the horse is still a colt and has not yet thought of bolting.

Any observer of state accountability systems will see that achievement gaps, the disparity between the achievement measures of disaggregated groups of children compared with the achievement of white, mainstream children, are typically treated equally at all grade level intervals. That is, gaps in learning for early elementary children, middle school students and high school students are to receive similar educational emphasis – close all gaps every year. Teacher resources, supports for assisted learning, time and effort are equally distributed across all student groups. This may be an expression of equity but what are we to do when equity is not working?

Data drives most decisions of modern educational policy. The examination of data has many political and business leaders bemoaning that children in the United States are outperformed by their peers on international achievement comparisons. Similar examinations of data inform us about the disparities that exist between groups of children in our schools. In fact, the gaps in learning among disaggregated groups of children in the US schools is greater than the gap between US children and their international peers. We know this to be true.

Data also tell us that educational achievement at an early age is more potent in enhancing later school and life successes than educational achievement at an older age. Children who are at or above grade level in their academic learning in elementary school and continue on this path build content and skill strengths that can compound each successive year. In contrast, children whose early school achievement is consistently below grade level do not build similar strengths even if they achieve grade level successes in secondary school. Or, in reverse, the lack of educational achievement at an early age has profound and detrimental consequences at later ages. We know this to be true.

Specifically, this is what we know. “Reading proficiently by the end of third grade (as measured by NAEP at the beginning of fourth grade) can be a make-or-break benchmark in a child’s educational development. Up until the end of third grade, most children are learning to read. Beginning in fourth grade, however, they are reading to learn, using their skills to gain more information in subjects such as math and science, to solve problems, to think critically about what they are learning, and to act upon and share that knowledge in the world around them. Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level, according to the Children’s Reading Foundation. And three quarters of students who are poor readers in third grade will remain poor readers in high school, according to researchers at Yale University. Not surprisingly, students with relatively low literacy achievement tend to have more behavioral and social problems in subsequent grades and higher rates of retention in grade. The National Research Council asserts that “academic success, as defined by high school graduation, can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone’s reading skill at the end of third grade. A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by that time is unlikely to graduate from high school.”

Stop and consider. “Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level.” It is easy to read and gloss over this statement, but we must not. If almost half of important written information is incomprehensible in fourth grade, how much is incomprehensible in fifth grade, or eighth grade of 10th grade? The incomprehensibility grows, especially as the reliance on background academic knowledge becomes greater and greater in the subject area texts that essential to high school subjects.

For these reasons, the academic achievement gaps developing in the primary grades must receive a greater portion of our intervention resources. Given that educational resources are finite, this will mean that a seeming disproportionate amount of resources will be focused on the primary grades. Inequity? No. Strategic and necessary. Yes! All children must be academically successful when they begin fourth grade. It is imperative that greater educational resources be targeted on each underachiever in 4-K and the primary grades.

And, there are more reasons that we know to be true which justify such an emphasis on primary grade interventions. “Some children don’t develop the social and emotional skills needed to function in a structured environment like school before they reach school age. These capacities, which are just as essential as cognitive skills for school success, include: the ability to manage emotions, follow directions, take turns, share, take responsibility, work independently and cooperatively, and stick with a task; motivation; enjoyment of learning; and the executive function – an ability to control oneself, make plans, learn rules, act appropriately, and think in abstract terms.

“The readiness gap becomes an achievement gap when children enter school, and this gap persists over the students’ school experience. McKinsey & Company found a gap of two to three years of learning between low-income and higher-income students in its analysis of average NAEP scores (10 points on the NAEP test are roughly equal to one year of education). For many low-income students, the achievement gap is exacerbated by low-performing schools; chronic absence; summer reading loss; and stressors like childhood hunger and food insecurity, housing insecurity, and family mobility.”

http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECF-Early_Warning_Full_Report-2010.pdf

Again, stop and consider. School readiness is one of the greatest determinants of early learning success. Children who demonstrate social and behavioral deficits in Kindergarten and the primary grades have great difficulty in achieving academic successes. Their social and emotional problems beget learning problems which beget further social and emotional instability. It is essential that primary teachers and staff have the time and resources to extinguish problematic behaviors and build productive behaviors. This cannot happen in the flow of a normal school day. Over-staffing and over-resourcing is necessary to pair and commit teachers with students who demonstrate these learning needs. Again, this is not inequity, but strategic and necessary intervention.

Additionally, although some causes for learning deficits appear to be extra-school, they still must be addressed by school interventions. Needs for nutrition and school supplies are relatively easy to satisfy. Transportation needs also should be easy to satisfy, as is the provision of enrichment materials for children to have at home. Supporting the parents of children with early deficits is more difficult, but not impossible. The key to these issues is the willingness of those responsible for closing achievement gaps to overload their resources toward all of the learning needs of primary grade children.

We must stop trying to put horses that have bolted from the barn back into their barn stalls year after year. It has and still proves to be a “too little, too late” remedy to problems that seem insurmountable given our record for closing achievement gaps. Instead, teach the horses while they are colts. Educational leaderships, by design, must become pre-emptive instead of ineffectively responsive in ensuring that all children are prepared to learn (reading skills, social and emotional readiness) as they enter fourth grade.